Tubi relaunched as the centrepiece in News Corp’s new advertising play
Almost every smart TV available in Australia has easy access to Tubi, a free streaming service owned by the Fox Corporation and used by over 100 million monthly viewers around the world. Now that Tubi has signed an exclusive ad sales representative deal with News Corp — and the media giant has put its marketing muscle behind it — Australians are finally starting to switch on.
Tubi isn’t new to the Australian market by any means. The Fox-owned ad-supported service was launched in Australia in September 2019, with a library of “just” 7,000 films and TV series. Tubi’s Australian offering now boasts over 125,000 titles.
“It’s worth noting that the Tubi business was quite different back then,” Tubi’s managing director David Salmon tells Mumbrella. Salmon’s full job title includes “international senior vice president”.
“This was pre the Fox acquisition [in March 2020], it was a scrappy scale-up based on the West Coast that was kind of launching in lots of markets, but when I say ‘launching’ I really just mean making the service available and hoping that people turned up.”
MC Andrew Bucklow and the Tubi mascot at the launch event
As Tubi executives quickly learned, audiences need to be aware of a service before they simply turn up.
Globally, Tubi is a massive hit, having reached the 100-million monthly viewer mark in June. But it hadn’t been marketed in Australia with any great might, previously falling under the remit of the Foxtel Group – who treated the service as an afterthought as it focused on its own core platforms like Foxtel, Binge, Kayo, and ill-fated news streamer Flash. Tubi isn’t even available as a tile on Foxtel’s crowded apps page, despite the likes of Disney+, Stan, Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and other competitors occupying the space.
“Over the past few years, as we’ve really seen a ton of growth across our North American footprint, we’ve been trying to work out what we wanted to do around our participation in the Australian market. We wanted to feel like we had conviction that we could add value for Australian consumers,” Salmon says.
Tubi rabbit and David Salmon
Tubi is operating in an increasingly crowded space — the free ad-supported streaming (FAST) market has ballooned in Australia over the six years Tubi has been in the country, and sees new entrants at an increasing pace.
Aside from the five national free-to-air broadcasters having their own vast free ad-supported services, Ten has also brought Pluto TV into its ecosystem; Kanopy offers educational video content for anyone with a library card; anime streamer Crunchyroll has a free ad-supported tier; Brollie, launched by Umbrella Media (no relation to Mumbrella), specialises in Australian content; plus there’s Plex, Kadoodle, Filmzie, Hoopla, Beamafilm, and other niche offerings with names that are slightly embarrassing to say out loud.
Where Tubi hopes to stand out in 2025 is with its exclusive partnership with News Corp, which was announced in January and came into effect in March. Since News Corp starting beating the drum, Tubi’s Australian viewership has risen by 30%, according to Ipsos iris metrics.
News Corp’s Lou Barrett and Pippa Leary with David Salmon
News Corp is set to ramp up the promotion further still. Tubi is now the centrepiece to News Australia’s commercial video proposition, which was launched to the advertising world at a splashy event in Sydney on Thursday afternoon.
The “All Screens for All Australians” offering bundles various Tubi advertising opportunities with News Australia’s short-form videos on mobile and desktop to “provide targeted solutions for every strategy, every screen and every plan” – according to News Corp’s spiel.
These campaigns will potentially reach over 5 million Australians, News Corp claims, and Tubi customers can be targeted as “addressable segments” grouped by category intent, shoppers, or by interest. There will also be “First Ad Takeover” and “Tubi Timeout” options to “own the living room.”
It’s a solid offering for advertisers – assuming Tubi can continue to draw eyeballs. Salmon certainly believes it will happen.
“As we built the partnership with News Corp, and we’re now really ramping up our investment in the market, we’ve built the business case that allowed us to understand where we think we see space in the market, and how we think we can use a lot of the playbook that’s been so successful in our other territories – and really now starting to ramp that up in Australia.
“We want to solve a consumer problem, and we want to feel like we really have a right to offer that value to consumers in the market before we really double down – and we definitely have that conviction.”
Tubi offers over 125,000 TV shows and movies.
Salmon has his own ideas where Tubi will sit in the Australian marketplace.
“So, our instinct is that whilst the Australian market is quite unique in lots of ways, there are some parallels to, for example, the UK with a very rich broadcaster ecosystem, as well as the layering on of all these global SVOD [streaming video-on-demand] services.”
“To us, there is still a lot of space in the Australian market for the kind of unique choice and programming model that Tubi provides.”
Salmon calls this a “low-pressure, delight-forward extreme choice” pointing to the over 125,000 movies and TV episodes now available.
“It felt like the Australian market is still very defined by a narrow focus on a medium consumer. Typically these are going to be older, whiter, richer consumers who — maybe they’re the people who have every single subscription you can imagine — but ultimately, for Tubi, we are trying to provide a really amazing free option that also offers this combination of amazing international programming and extreme choice.”
Tubi has struck various content deals with NBCU, Sony Entertainment, and New Regency, as well as expanding its own originals catalogue. In Australia, it has unwound licensing deals for some of this original content, reclaiming it for Tubi’s own ecosystem. Salmon says that a slate of Australian-produced originals seems inevitable – once it has the local viewing data to steer any production decision.
David Salmon on stage with Pippa Leary at the Tubi launch
“We want originals to really fill gaps that we believe the storytelling on our platform doesn’t necessarily satisfy,” Salmon says.
“Before you start commissioning, you should really deeply understand the consumers and their preferences and what they want. A lot of our programming is very driven by a lot of the data and insights that pull from our 100-million user base.
“I would say — not within the next sort of six months to 12 months probably — but in the medium term, it’s not unrealistic to think we might start to commission for the Australian market.”
For now, however, it’s about building audiences – which means building awareness.
“We’re really excited to continue to expand the content offering, and our footprint in this market, to offer Australian consumers the same thing that’s driven so much surprise and delight for consumers in North America.”
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